


The Curious Case Of River Song

by riversongshair



Category: Curious Case of Benjamin Button - All Media Types, Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Age Difference, Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Doctor Who, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-30
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 00:42:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riversongshair/pseuds/riversongshair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River Song was born with a peculiar syndrome, old at birth. To her parent's horror, they gave her away to an orphanage, where she grew to meet, befriend and eventually fall in love with a certain person, The Doctor. River finds out the complications of loving someone who hardly ages. As she grows younger, the Doctor doesn't.</p><p>Inspired by the story of "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button", you could call this an "extreme AU" of Doctor Who.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This idea just strolled in my head, and I'm not sure if it will work. I hope it does. As you read above, this is very much inspired by the story "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button", which is actually a very heartbreaking and beautiful story. If you don't know it's story, you should really look it up. 
> 
> I'm only writing the prologue here because I want to test the story out, so it's really short, tell me what you think, whether it has potential or not and stuff :)

She was born different. Her mother appalled at the sight of her own daughter, sent her away to an orphanage in a far off galaxy, exiling her from their household out of shame, the shame her mother felt at having such a child when all her sisters had more beautiful, more angelic looking babies. She hurriedly left her at the steps and fled, abandoning her, and leaving River to be estranged from her mother, galaxies away. The caretakers found her the next morning, crying weakly in a wooden cot, with only a blanket around her and a note clutched in her small hands. They looked into the cot, and her features immediately startled them. Her skin was wrinkled, her face had the most prominent wrinkles as it scrunched up when she cried and her hair was crisp white. Unsure of what to do, they read the note attached to the child:

_Her name is River Song._

_  
_The letter was unhelpfully vague, and after small hesitation, the caretakers took River in, to care for her and to provide for her, but deep inside fearful of what she might grow up to be, if she appeared so surprising at such a young age. There she spent her early years, learning how to walk, how to talk. The caretakers became mothers to her, her only family; the other children slowly left, they were adopted, lived with foster parents or grew old enough to leave, and River's peculiar appearance always repelled the visitors, leaving her alone while the rest of the children never talked to her because of how 'odd' she looked.

It was about age five, that the caretakers noticed River's condition, and they worried about her, taking her from hospital to hospital and hoping that they could cure her; but each doctor they took her to shook their heads in utter confusion, claiming to have never seen anything like it before. But River herself, had never felt anything wrong within her. She walked normally, slowly, but still normally, and her mind was alert and bright, but each time she looked at the mirror she saw her aging face, and suddenly understood more and more with age, why no one wanted to talk to her, she was too different.

There was always one boy though, one boy out of all the kids that taunted her, that took a fascination in River. He was called the Doctor, he arrived into the orphanage a few years after River did and although he too did not speak much to River, as she always distanced herself from the rest, he never thought badly of her, even in his youth. He knew River was different, he knew she looked nothing like himself or the other kids, and he never found anyone more interesting than River Song, because like River, the Doctor was different in his own way too.


	2. Ten: The Origin of The Doctor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suppose i received enough feedback to actually start this story! Hope you like it!

River was ten years old now, and while her wrinkles lessened much more than how they were five years earlier, she still stood out with her mixture of grey and white hair, but lively with curls. It was often because of her appearance that people mistook her for being one of the caretakers, and in that moment River decided to put her aged appearance to good use, and often helped out the caretakers with the more younger children. At ten years old, River was much more mature, being alone and independent for most of her life left her little time to feel like a little girl, especially the way people treated her.  The caretakers that she grew up with aged drastically throughout the years, one of them she called 'mother' passed away three years ago, leaving River without a family figure once again. She remembered her skinny, frail body and her wrinkles and spots on her hand just weeks before she died, and it struck River with a fear that soon she would too because of how she looked like her 'mother'. It was only until she realized her condition that she was truly different from everyone else.

River sat alone in her room playing with a doll that one of the children who were recently adopted, left behind. River was the only child in the orphanage to have her own room, she liked it better that way, it meant she could place her toys anywhere, she could put anything up on her wall and she could talk or sing as loud as she felt like without someone other than the caretakers telling her not to. By now, a majority of the children had left, and it was those same children that came into the orphanage all together at the same time, all those children apart from one boy, who at the moment was lurking around the halls of the orphanage, bored and looking for something to do. The little boy noticed River's open bedroom door and saw her sitting on her bed cross-legged brushing her dolls hair and quietly singing to herself.

"Why are you alone?" The boy said shyly, standing at the door way of her room. River's head shot up to see who could be talking to her. It was a familiar face, but she wondered why he only decided to talk to her now.

"Because I like being alone." She replied proudly.

"I like being alone too." He said with a pause afterwards, he opened his mouth like he had more to say "Do you want to be alone together?"

River put down her doll and looked at the boy, wondering where all this conversation was coming from, he never spoke to her, she never spoke to him, yet they always acknowledged the other's exsistence, but not enough to even know the other's name. "Okay. But then we're not really alone anymore. We'll be like friends."

The boy took this as permission to walk into her room and sit on a chair opposite her bed, he flopped down comfortably, like he already made himself at home. 

"Friends? I've never had a friend before. I could use a friend." 

"Me too. But friends always leave each other in the end..." River said quietly, she remembered the many children who formed strong friendships being separated from each other when the other left, even the caretakers being shattered at the loss of one of their closest friends, River's 'mother'.

"I'm not going anywhere." He laughed a bit, gesturing to himself sitting down on her chair. "If I had a friend, I'd never leave them." 

"I thought I was your friend." River said a bit confused.

"So I'm never leaving you am I?" He smiled at her. River liked this boy, he never spoke to her, but now that he has, she was very happy he did and felt a small warmth in her heart that her striking looks didn't put him off, or scare him. She got up from her bed to stand in front of him.

"What's your name then? I can't call you 'friend' all the time, that would be silly." She laughed at the idea. 

The boy got up as well and stood in front of River, sticking his hand out for her to shake it, "I'm the Doctor." 

She burst out laughing before taking his hand "The Doctor?!" She laughed again, "You can't be called 'The Doctor'." 

"Why not?" He took his hand back, looking a bit hurt.

"Well because...because that's not a name!" She said hesitantly, feeling a bit bad for laughing.

"Why can't the Doctor be a name, but a name like "Jimmy" can?" He said with a small pout, crossing his arms.

River paused for a while, thinking he made a very good point, "You're right...what are names anyway?" She smiled and put out her hand for him to shake now, "I'm River Song." 

The Doctor laughed a bit, taking her hand to shake it, "Now that's a funny name!" He giggled. 

"Hey! That's not fair! We've both got weird names, okay? We didn't really choose them!" She smiled through her fake anger.

The Doctor nodded, this conversation seemed very profound to him, and made him realize a lot of things already. He sat back down on her chair. 

"So, River. Do you know why you're here?"

River paused to think, she didn't recall her caretakers telling her anything about how she came here, only that she was said to be 'too cute to look after' so her real mother had to send her away, which River now realized was a lie as she grew older, so she decided not to tell the Doctor that reason. The story's credibility faded away since she was five years old. "No, I don't. What about you?" 

The Doctor on the other hand was informed by the other children of why he was here, and at the moment the news broke his heart, he sighed sadly as he looked at River, bracing himself to tell her the story. He felt, even though he just got to know her, that he could tell her, this girl. He knew that he could trust her with his greatest shame and secrets. River noticed his sudden change in mood.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to..." She said softly. 

"No it's okay, I want to tell you." He smiled sadly, "I come from another planet." He started "It's called Gallifrey."

"Is it pretty there?" River asked.

"It was." He replied sadly. "Or so I've heard." He continued, "There was a war. They called it the 'Time War' between Timelords and Daleks, I'm a Timelord. I was only a baby when I came here. Those children that came with me when I first arrived here, they were abandoned after the war and I was one of them. Gallifrey is islolated, and some of the children didn't even last long enough to make it here. My family was taken away from me by the Daleks of Skaro, and I've been alone ever since. I don't know how I got here, I don't remember. But those children told me why I'm here and even they have gone. And since then I've been alone, there's no one like me left. I'm the last of the Timelords." 

River stared at him, taking in his story, and finding it unbelievable. Her heart sank a bit and she wondered what her own story was, whether it was as tragic as his or not. 

"Doctor...what does a Timelord do?" She asked curiously, after a moment of silence. 

"I-I can see everything. All of time, all that was and will be. I can see it." He stared at the ground, "I can read minds. I can even change my face--" His sentence faded away, looking up to River, who looked almost relieved but worried at the same time. 

"So you're different?" She smiled a bit. "You're different like me." 

He smiled to her "Yeah. I'm very different."

River felt overwhelmed, finding out so much about this one boy who had always remained alone, just like herself. This boy who wasn't normal, who thought loudly inside his head and had such a past. She realized how similar she was to the Doctor, and something about that made her feel that she wasn't so alone anymore, and neither was he.

"Do you want to be different together?" She sat down next to him, holding her little finger out to him, like she was making a vow.

He looked at River one more time, and saw past her aged face, her eyes were alive and young. She was the first person he ever opened up to in the orphanage. She will probably be the only person he'll open up to, he thought. 

"Yeah" He hooked his little finger with hers, grinning at her "Let's be different together." 


End file.
